


Midnight Oil

by bottle_of_smoke



Series: A Taste of Salt [3]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Amateur mechanic eddie kaspbrak, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Eddie Kaspbrak has feelings about The Hot Zone, Established Relationship, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Richie Tozier POV, communication porn, just two bottoms trying to make it work, sex pact, supporting each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:54:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25552378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bottle_of_smoke/pseuds/bottle_of_smoke
Summary: On the night before his wedding Richie contemplates happiness, parenthood, and the stupidity of sex pacts.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: A Taste of Salt [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1582000
Comments: 35
Kudos: 146





	Midnight Oil

**Author's Note:**

> Because I'm incapable of writing straightforward porn a heads-up:
> 
> This fic contains discussions on both characters' canonical (book and movie) past trauma. This includes homophobia, internalised homophobia, past drink and drug abuse, and Eddie's childhood abuse. Richie is getting better and moving forward, but he is still prone to reflexive self-hatred that might prove upsetting, and both make poor taste or ill thought out remarks. At one point there is a discussion of a past suicide attempt. If you would like to read the fic but would prefer to avoid that part, stop reading at "Eddie's face did something complicated" and start again at "'Come here.'" There are also long segments in which the characters discuss parenthood and their different opinions about it; nothing nasty, but I appreciate some readers may prefer to avoid it.
> 
> That said, this is supposed to be a hopeful fic. I hope you like it.

Richie could tell, by the way they rocked on the balls of their feet and did not look at him, that the girls were thinking of coming over.  


He sighed. These days there were two types of people that approached him, one of which he mentally assigned _pre,_ the other _post_. From their coloured undercuts and pierced lips, the familiar, fierce way in which they leaned into one another, these were plainly the latter--which was to say, tolerable. But he was edgy in airports at the best of times and today was... well. Today  _ was  _ the best of times. He scuffed his feet as though he might kick off the fizzing, unspent energy that filled his blood like uncorked champagne. He felt as one of those intense, high maintenance dogs people kept locked in city apartments might, on the brink of chewing the fuck out of something and anxious as shit. A border collie, perhaps. Or Eddie Kaspbrak.

He glanced over again: they were coming over. Better not chew the fuck out of them. He straightened up and smoothed over best he could. As they approached he noted their matching nervous grimaces. It surprised him still, these fans that got nervous in his presence.

Close up they were oddly alike, like sisters though this was plainly not the case. Richie wondered if he thought this because he had never been attracted to women. Perhaps it was that he just didn’t pay enough attention to them. That seemed like a thing he ought to examine, but for now he pushed the reflexive self-criticism away and smiled. The less-anxious looking of the girls, distinguishable by her green hair and Winter Soldier tattoo, stopped abruptly and shoved her girlfriend forward. The girlfriend (tangerine dye job, Captain America tat-- _ aww _ ) turned a shade of pink which clashed with her hair. She was young enough to be his daughter. He was oddly touched.

‘You girls good?’ he asked, knowing that if he didn’t say anythi ng then they would only blush mutely at him. Which would be weird for everyone.

‘Are you Rich Tozier?’ asked Cap. Her abruptness was almost rude. Hearing it, she turned a shade of pink darker.

‘You think there’s some other poor fucker out there look like me?’ He smiled to show he was joking.  


‘ _She_ thinks you look nice,’ said Bucky. A midwestern accent there, somewhere with lots of corn and few lesbians. Ignoring her girlfriend, so red now she looked as though she might catch fire, she met Richie’s eye with a defiant, almost aggressive stare. Richie couldn't quite parse it, yet understood it wasn't jealousy. Christ, she must be what, twelve? The tattoo suggested otherwise but she was clearly twelve.

‘That’s the first time I’ve been accused of that. You need to borrow these?’ He offered his glasses to the blushing girl, and was pleased when both smiled. For a second the tension eased.

‘So, we just came over to say... we wanted to say we really admire you and like, what you went through was--.’

Richie’s heart sank. This again. Sure, it was preferable to the other kind of encounter, the (increasingly rare, thank fuck) latent Henry Bowerses with castratation fantasies; yet sometimes he almost missed his old fans. Those he could openly hate, and have think it was a part of the act. Easy. Fans like these girls--nice people, fans that he  _ liked-- _ were much harder. He'd never been much good at sincerity, had only begun learning it of late, and he always felt they needed something from him. Something more consequential than a signature, something he had neither the depth or right to give.  


‘...and that thing with the photos,  _ oh my god!  _ That invasion of privacy! It should be illegal!’

He was going to have to say something. ‘Yeah, well… look, I’m not saying I wouldn’t enjoy seeing the assholes responsible for those put in stocks and cream-pied or whatever, but they sort of did me a favour? Not that they meant it like that, but it was sort of the best thing that happened to me? I mean, it was the absolute fucking worst but like, I’m not sure what would have happened if it hadn’t happened, you know? Or what  _ wouldn’t  _ have happened.’ Richie, scared of spilling his guts, came to a halt. The air seemed thin as ozone. Without thinking about what he was doing, he slipped his hand into his pocket and palmed the contents. Still good. At once he could breathe again. 

‘Cream-pied?’ There was a crease in Bucky’s cheek, in  _ both  _ their cheeks.

‘Yeah like, throwing a pie in someone’s face? What the fuck did you think I meant?’

The girls exchanged private smiles. Richie felt abruptly old. He wanted Eddie who, amongst his other qualities, always made Richie feel very with it. Which he knew was not a very with it thing to say.

‘Where’s Eds?’ asked Bucky, as though reading his mind. 

‘That’s who I’m waiting for actually.’ Richie smiled at the diminutive. He could summon the exact expression on Eddie’s face as though he were standing in front of him. Getting over  _ Richie  _ calling him Eds had taken Eddie the best part of four decades; now he had the whole nation to contend with, or the bit of it that listened to Rich Tozier’s podcast, anyway. Happily for Richie that part included some of Eddie’s old co-workers. Eddie denied it, but Richie knew that it was the workplace emergence of  _ Eds _ , not the LA traffic, that had persuaded Eddie to take a job where he could work from home most of the time.

(At least “Eds” was about tolerable. One time, Eds had come home steaming with rage and Richie had learned of another variant:  _ “Rich Tozier’s Eds” _ . Somebody had actually said that. To his  _ face.  _ That night had been perhaps the funniest and most sexy of Richie's life; it was the frisson of fear that had done it. What Eddie had done to his ass may have been meant as a punishment. If so, it was the sort of punishment Richie could get behind. Or underneath, as it were.)

Richie coughed and reset his expression, conscious he was in company and doing a whole horny face journey. The girls were looking at him like they were expecting an answer to something. ‘Atlanta,’ he guessed. ‘He’s had some work thing.’

‘That’s so cute.’ Cap gave a little sigh, as though Richie picking his boyfriend up from the airport made him some sort of gallant knight.  _ You think  _ that’s  _ cute, wait till I tell you what I let him do to my ass,  _ thought Richie, and had to school his face again. 

‘He’s due any minute now,' he said, hoping they'd get the hint. He didn’t want to be mean but he didn’t want to meet Eddie with an entourage, either. For all Richie talked about him on his show (always  _ my boyfriend, Eds _ , never  _ fiancé  _ or  _ partner _ because now it was out there it might as well be  _ out there _ ) he liked that there remained a space between it and themselves. A place other people couldn’t follow. What had once been secrecy had become privacy, a thing chosen rather than imposed, all the more precious for having once been stripped away.

They got the hint. He signed Cap’s phone case and squeezed both their hands. ‘You girls love each other,’ he said. It was cheesy but he was vindicated by their pleased faces. When he waved them goodbye it was with real fondness. A good encounter, he thought. In his pocket his phone buzzed.

_ ‘Come get me asshole’ _

The romance just wasn’t letting up today.

It was ridiculous how excited it made him to see Eddie after even a short time apart. With Richie's job days spent away from one another were pretty much par for the course, yet it remained that he lived for these reunions. He’d spent almost his entire adult life missing Eddie without knowing what it was he missed. Now when he was gone he knew it, with an intensity that ought to have been unbearable and yet wasn’t, because the fact was that Eddie always came back. For someone who found his own company intolerable this was something of a mystery to Richie. Yet he knew it with the same absolute certainty as he knew that the tides would turn, and seasons change, and sea-turtles return to the beach of their hatching: like a thing of nature, Eddie would always come back. 

‘Hey, sweetheart,’ said Eddie. In grey sweatpants and cotton tee he looked soft and well. It was a get-up similar to one he slept in at home during the cooler months, and Richie found himself thinking of the kissing sound his bare feet made against the hardwood floor of their bedroom. He considered the curious intimacy of the thought, of remembering it in this very public place. His heart gave a funny squeeze. He felt again, without embarrassment, the ridiculousness of his love.

‘Hey babe.’ He grinned stupidly.  


Eddie put his face on an angle and levelled his gaze. A request without insistence. Things were better now, but there were still days when the old fear won. Today Richie forced it back into its cage and bent to kiss his beloved’s mouth. It was quick, verging on chaste; yet the seam of Eddie’s lip was warm and moist. Richie dabbed his tongue there and drew back, smiling. He refused the urge to look and see if anyone had observed them.

‘No time to lose.’ He shouldered Eddie’s hold-all. ‘Let’s bounce.’

‘You got the things?’ Eddie asked, not moving.  


Richie retrieved the box from his pocket and passed it over. When Eddie cracked it open Richie half-expected his face to light up, Pulp Fiction-style.

‘I was gonna get ‘em out of a cereal box but decided to shell out.’

‘Sorry.’ Eddie slid the box into his pocket. ‘Please don’t take it personally. I’m driving myself nuts worrying about every little detail.’

‘Well, that’s one thing that hasn’t gone wrong.’ Richie gave Eddie’s waist an affectionate rub. He heroically refrained from squeezing his ass until they got outside, where he could help himself no longer.

‘Get off me, you fucking sex pest.’ Eddie swatted. Richie danced out of reach, and something popped in his lower back.

‘But you’re so hot,’ Richie whined. He hoped Eddie didn’t see him rubbing his back. Fuck! He needed that. While he stretched out the offending muscle he took time to admire Eddie, all wildcat bronzes and browns and bird’s egg stipple in the LA sunshine. Even his arm hair was tipped with gold. California suited Eddie like New York never had. It was a physical belonging, the way a wild creature only looks fully complete in its proper habitat.

Eddie couldn’t drive any sort of distance with his shoulder pain, and there wasn’t a chance in hell he’d let Richie near his classic roadster which he treated like a prize racehorse, yet he still complained when he saw Richie had brought his own car. ‘We discussed this before you flew out,’ Richie said, knowing that Eddie complained only because he liked to, as cats will sometimes purr to please themselves. Richie liked it too. He found it comforting in the way ordinary people found whalesong or rainfall. Whatever the reason for it was it did not stop Eddie kissing him properly when they got in the car, or again when they hit the boom gate. Richie felt, not for the first time, the awe of having someone who missed him back. 

‘How was Atlanta? Invent any new diseases?’

‘That’s not really the point of the CDC.’ Richie glanced over at him. Eddie’s face was turned to the window but he could guage the soft set of his expression, the smile that was not quite wry. It occurred to him that perhaps Eddie got the same comfort out of Richie’s noises that Richie got out of his.

‘Whatever. I’ve read the subreddit.’

It had been a long journey for Eddie, this striving towards getting better. That was betterness in its healing sense--through therapy, sheer will and wanting it enough--, but betterness in himself too, as a human being. ‘I’m sick of working for assholes,’ Eddie had said after the interview. ‘Not my co-workers, they’re fine. I mean the people who benefit from me. Insurance dicks. I think I’d hate myself less if I were working toward something that didn’t make the world a worse place.’

Richie got that. He’d been there himself and tried to make amends for it. Taken the financial penalty too, as Eddie would when he accepted the offer (being a better person seemed to come with that caveat.) It had been worth it, he thought; yet he was worried when Eddie took the job. 

‘Epidemiological monitoring, Eds, really?’ He was concerned enough that he didn't pretend to not know what that meant. ‘You sure this isn’t gonna send you over the edge? That you might be reversing right over some very expensive therapy?’

But Richie was wrong. It had had the opposite effect. Breaking down infectious disease to a set of a rules, a bunch of statistics that followed predictable patterns, had allowed to Eddie to come to some sort of peace. It was not a thing that would ever totally vanish--Eddie still had days when he would ask Richie to use a condom, same as Richie had days he couldn’t kiss Eddie in an airport--but it had become something manageable. And, by and large, Eddie managed it. Richie was so proud sometimes it hurt.

‘Some fucking shit-for-brains with a manbun asked if we could see the Hot Zone. You know, the one from the book.’ Eddie flung his hands in the air. ‘That was fucking Virginia, jackass!  _ Reston virus _ . Clue’s in the fucking name!’

‘That wasn’t even proper ebola, right?’ asked Richie, feeling like he was throwing lit matches up Smokey Bear’s asscrack. Eddie was always fraught post-flight, and Richie could never resist winding the key in his back. It was a sort of tradition, a courtship ritual like the dance seabirds do when they return to their mates. (Richie had watched a documentary about albatrosses once and cried so long and hard Eddie had banned Attenborough from the house.)

‘If by proper you mean Zaire then no. There was a lot of bullshit in that book.’ Eddie’s voice was very dark.

Richie hid his grin. There were a lot of feelings there. He’d never told Eddie that Mike had once confessed that he still privately referred to 1994 as  _ the Hot Zone year _ , much in the same way they all called 1989  _ the clown year _ . Richie was sorry he’d missed it. On second thought, he wasn’t sure that his eighteen-year-old dick could've taken the hit. 

‘So you had a good time then.’

Eddie nodded, a look of satisfaction on his face, the post-flight itchiness sloughing off like a snake shedding its hide. He cracked the window. A hairdryer blast of dry LA heat filled the car, pungent with dust and gasoline. He closed it again.

‘Five fucking hours of this. I’m gonna sweat my balls off.’ He slid the gallon-bottle of water from where it was cooking on the backseat. ‘Why are we doing this in summer again? In the middle of a fucking desert?’

‘Because it’s romantic. Because it’s the only time all our fabulously successful friends could get together. Because we wanted to be married by Elvis.’

Eddie took a swig of the blood-warm water and grimaced. ‘If Elvis is there I’m turning right the fuck around. I’m Julia Robertsing your ass. I did not buy a four hundred dollar pair of shoes so some bargain basement King could pronounce us husband and uh-huh-husband.’

Richie laughed. That was pretty good! Richie was rubbing off on Eddie, and not just in a horny way. ‘Babe, you buy a four hundred dollar pair of shoes to go to Whole Foods.’

It had been a surprise, this materialistic streak. Eddie hadn’t been like that as a kid. It was something that had happened in adulthood, after they had forgotten one another. Eddie liked expensive things. Not  _ tasteful _ , god bless his trashy ass, but things that cost a lot. And so what? Richie had blown too much money up his nose and on comic book first editions to judge what other people spent their money on, even when he recognised the reasons were less than healthy.  


Richie was intimate with the reflexes of unhappiness. His own had taken the forms of vodka and blow and the sort of sex that left him feeling sick with fear after, but he’d done the big mansion thing himself when he first got successful. All it had done was create an echo chamber for his loneliness, and he’d sold it less than a year later. He’d been unhappy in his little condo too, but at least he wasn’t living in a gigantic three-million-dollar metaphor for it. He loved Eddie, would do anything for him, but the argument over the new house was the first time love made him say no. It had surprised them both.  


In the end they’d looked at a three-bed bungalow in a quiet neighbourhood neither would normally have considered. There were exposed beams in the ceiling, uneven whitewashed walls, and terracotta floors. An aromatic breeze, scented by the neighbourhood’s many trees, ran from one end of the house to the other whenever the windows were opened. The elderly couple who had owned it had left behind a good half-acre of established kitchen garden, vegetable beds and orchard. It was this that Eddie, consummate New Yorker, had fallen in love with. For Richie it had been the bungalow’s peculiar darkness. Everywhere else he’d lived had been showy, brightly-lit places, specimen jars for the rich and famous. The bungalow, with its small windows and north-facing aspect, had been bashfully described as  _ private  _ in the real estate brochure, which was exactly right. Intimacy was built into its walls as surely as the timbers, and Richie was sick of being a specimen. They’d made an offer on the spot. One day, about six months after they’d moved in, Eddie had leaned over the breakfast island in their cool dark kitchen where they both liked to work and kissed Richie's mouth. ‘You were absolutely right,’ he’d said. ‘I’m stupid fucking happy.’

Richie felt the same. It had been in his mid-thirties that he’d had begun to suspect he was not the hedonist he was trying to be. Was, in fact, a sort of basic bitch. What he had wanted, in the marrow of his bones, was a person. A person who was his and to whom he belonged. He wanted a home, a bed to share, and a family. It had seemed so impossible for so long that even now he’d wake up in his home in the bed he shared with his favourite person, feeling like he’d won the jackpot in a game he’d never fairly played. The hugeness of his own happiness terrified him.

‘So I like nice things. Fucking sue me,’ said Eddie.  


Richie picked up Eddie’s hand and kissed the knuckles. When the hand turned and presented its tender palm he kissed that too. He kept his eyes dead ahead, knowing that if he looked at Eddie he would start crying.

‘Eds, get my phone out my pocket would you?’

‘I’m not feeling you up on the highway, asshole.’

‘Aw, come on man, I thought you’d done with the risk assessing? Who’d a little road head ever hurt?’ He grinned, looking over at Eddie who was smirking too. ‘Seriously, I need you to text Dolores for me and check up on my girls.’

‘Don’t tell me you didn’t check up on them this morning before you left. I’m sure they can handle you being gone a little while. There’ll be some passing child they can feed on or whatever.’ He gave Richie a hard pinch where he tried to nudge into his sliding hand.

‘Ooph! Don’t nip the goods!’ Richie pouted. ‘My girls would do no such thing. They consume only the finest, leanest flesh from the most stunted human males.’

‘I’ve still got the scars.’ Eddie indicated a fine white line, practically invisible, on his wrist. He gave a little moue of distaste. 

‘Serves you right for being so delectable.’ Richie caught his hand again and gnawed the thick meat of his thumb.

‘Watch the fucking road,’ snapped Eddie, pleased. He curled his salt-tasting fingers into the space behind Richie’s teeth, drawing him like a hooked fish. With the other hand he rattled out a brief message. ‘Does Dolores even know how to text?’

‘Come on, she’s not that fucking old.’

Los Angeles segued into green-lined suburb, then parched road. They risked the window again. Scorched dust snatched the membranes of Richie’s nose. He sneezed. Eddie switched on the radio, twisting his mouth at everything he found until he gave up and pulled a playlist up on Richie’s phone. 

‘Oh hey, I remember this.’

_ It ain’t always what I want, it ain’t always mi-i-ine.  _ Richie’s stomach swooped. With a shock like a defibrillator the memory arrived, fully formed. A colour-leeched summer afternoon. The sun casting crisp white jailbars on a bedroom floor strewn with discarded clothes. The mosquito high-note of an electric fan. Teenage miasma and its attendant squalor: Richie’s room. They lay side-by-side, stomachs flush to the mattress, tacky-skinned arms pressed together. There was a comic spread before them. Richie couldn’t remember which comic it was, though every other detail of the new memory was as clean and fresh as a newly emerged butterfly. He’d been too distracted because Eddie, still small, still physically a child, was playing with the new coarse hairs on the back of Richie’s forearm. Like it was nothing. Like it was just something you just did. Richie had been crazy with want. Something else, too.

‘Fuck,’ choked Richie, remembering.

‘That was our last summer, wasn’t it? You left that fall.’

‘Yeah. I knew. My mom had told me that morning. I couldn’t make myself tell you then but--I knew.’ The pain felt newly minted. 

‘You played this song over and over. You had to keep getting up to rewind the tape.’

‘Adolescent heartbreak was harder back then. You had to put in the legwork. Kids these days don’t know how easy they have it.’ Richie’s chest was collapsing. His heart fluttered like a panicked bird in a crushed cage.  _ Why didn’t I just kiss him? _ he wondered, against the proof of his body which told him why.  _ I’d kissed him once before, why didn’t I just kiss him? _

‘Rich.’ Eddie’s hand closed around his knee. ‘Rich, sweetheart, you know I forgive you, right?’

Richie made a low animal noise.

‘You need to pull over?’

‘Nah, I’m good.’ He scooped the hand up from his knees, pressing his lips almost violently to the spot where there’d soon be a ring. ‘I’m real fucking good.’

The Psychedelic Furs became Siouxsie and the Banshees, became Weezer. Eddie dozed in the passenger seat. Featureless desert rolled out to every horizon. A bird tracked the car for half a mile, so dark it seemed to have been cut out of the sky. A hawk perhaps, or a buzzard. Stan would’ve known.

A message popped up on his phone. Eddie was asleep so he took a look at it, feeling naughty. ‘Fuck!’ he barked, dropping Eddie’s hand. Only then did he realise he had still been holding it.

‘What happened?’ Eddie’s voice was muzzy with sleep. He rubbed a dried slick of spit on his chin. ‘You better not have run over a hobo.’

‘You say that like it’s a thing I’ve done before?’ said Richie, bemused. He gestured to his phone on the dashboard. ‘No one’s dead. It’s fucking Dolores. That  _ tart.  _ She’s feeding them wet food!’

Eddie looked. ‘Why is she shouting?’

‘I don’t think she knows how to switch caps-lock off on her phone.’ He smacked the steering wheel with the palms of his hands. ‘Eddie, she’s trying to poach my girls! She wants to assimilate them into her own colony, like some kind of cat-Borg.  _ Hussy! _ ’

‘You’re mixing your metaphors. Is she a pimp or a villainous drone?’ Another message pinged. Eddie leaned in to read it. ‘She doesn’t like “the nasty tortoiseshell”, whatever that means.’

‘Battle Cat! My loyal darling, my love.’

‘Oh, the mauler.’ Eddie's lips thinned to nothing. ‘Dude, let her take it.’

‘That’s my number one girl you’re talking about. Apart from you of course, my rosebud.’

Eddie scrubbed his arms. ‘Fuck, it’s freezing in here. Did you--.’ His eyes snagged on the dash and the words evaporated from this throat. ‘Rich. Your temperature light is on.’

‘Yeah, it’s pretty hot out. I put up the A/C so we should be good in a few minutes.’

Eddie stared. ‘Dude that’s like, the  _ opposite  _ of what you’re supposed to do! Pull the fuck over!’

On the shoulder road they stood elbow to elbow, staring at the car. White, sweet-smelling steam unfurled from under the hood, drifting up into the blank, featureless sky.

‘Ya think I got a leak?’ 

‘Coolant,’ said Eddie. ‘You fucking idiot.’

‘I’ll call a mechanic. Or should I just flag someone down?’ Richie gestured vaguely at the road. ‘We probably won’t get murdered this time of day.’

Eddie shot him a look of ball-shrinking disdain. ‘It’s a fucking leak. _I_ can fix it, once the engine’s cooled.’

‘Ooh, my big competent manly man,’ Richie keened in his best Olive Oyl. He slumped down into the dirt and wriggled his legs. ‘My delicious little gearhead.’

‘We’re very different kinds of gays,’ said Eddie, wonderingly.

They played tic-tac-toe in the dust while the engine ticked over. Richie retrieved a blistered chips packet from under his ass and did his Crying Indian, which Eddie pretended not to find funny. ‘I’ve seen you cry over less.’ After a while Eddie got up to take a look at the engine. Richie followed. A cloud of trapped steam gusted from the engine bay like dry-ice, submerging them both. Richie was put in mind of certain clubs he’d visited back in the noughties.

‘Yoink!’ 

‘Get off my ass, moron. You just made us nearly miss our fucking wedding.’

‘Stop being so dramatic. We’ve got buttloads of time. We could get there on a donkey with all the time we have.’ 

Eddie ignored him. He poked around in the engine bay for a minute. Richie took the opportunity to take a picture and sent it to Beverly, _'goin 2 b late. worth it!!1'_ When Eddie turned back around his face glistened under a bloom of steam, like a freshly picked plum . ‘Fetch me that breakdown kit I got you.’

Richie extracted it from under the suits in the trunk. ‘Just like new,’ he said, presenting like an enormous cheque. 

Eddie took it with a disparaging look. ‘While you’re back there you can get me one of your horrible shirts. I’m not ruining my clothes because you can’t do basic car maintenance.’

Richie weighed this a moment then scrambled back to the trunk. ‘Sorry, barfing unicorn,’ he whispered to the raggy t-shirt he emerged with. ‘Your sacrifice will be immortalised forever in my spank bank.’

‘Man, I hate this shirt,’ said Eddie approvingly when Richie handed it over. ‘Good choice.’

Richie wanted to defend the shirt’s honour but was distracted by the sight of Eddie stripping down on the highway, dusty sweat-slicked plains of skin appearing as though from a chrysalis. He was conscious that his mouth was ajar, that he was eating highway dirt and worse and that there was nothing he could do about it.

‘Second thoughts, just leave the shirt off,’ he rasped.

‘Fuck off.’ Eddie’s head emerged and he snatched the shirt over his midriff. His cheeks were flushed.

Richie stepped forward and slipped his fingers under the old cotton. He stroked the scrap of soft flesh. ‘When you’re done fixing that leak I got another right here you could take a look at.’

‘I’m not fucking you on the shoulder road.’ Eddie turned back into the engine bay. Richie admired the way his butt strained against his sweatpants. ‘Or anywhere else, for that matter. Remember the pact.’

Richie’s cheerful horniness evaporated. ‘Fuck the pact,’ he sulked. ‘The pact’s stupid.’

The pact  _ was  _ stupid. And sort of maybe Richie’s fault. A little over a month ago, while proving a now forgotten point about his sexual athleticism, he’d pulled a muscle in his back badly enough he’d spent a week sleeping on the floor. Eddie had suggested that it might be better if they avoided sex until the honeymoon in case it happened again. Plus, he said hopefully, like he was trying to persuade himself, it was sort of romantic. Richie wasn’t convinced a few weeks going dry after three years of vigorous ass-pounding would prove anything whatever about their commitment to one another, and said as much (‘that sounds like some hetero B.S., Eds.’), but he was up to the gills on prescription meds and a sentimental little bitch even when he wasn’t so agreed anyway. With a comic timing Richie envied, his lumbar had made a miraculous overnight recovery and he’d spent the last month kicking his own ass because he was a fucking idiot.

He’d wheedled, of course he had. Pulled all his sexiest tricks out the bag. But Eddie was a master of discipline, honed on years of self-denial: processed carbs, trans fats, happiness--and now, Richie’s dick. It was a formidable thing, this self-control deployed erotically… and what the fuck, super-fucking-hot. While Richie whined like a spoiled child Eddie held, like the Colonel Custer of not fucking.

‘It’s one more night, dude,’ said Eddie primly. He dodged another play Richie made for his ass.

‘But I want it _now_ ,’ Richie sulked. ‘My tubes are like, backed up. This can’t be good for either of us.’

‘I’m sure you’ve gone way longer than this before,’ sniffed Eddie, who absolutely had. It wasn’t untrue. Richie had once been able to go months before the need for intimacy outweighed the blood-freezing terror he got from so much as looking at another dude. But that was before Eddie. Since Eddie, the longest he’d gone without a tour as an excuse (and even then they worked things out; sorry planet, but there was a reason God invented air miles) was the time he’d got jizz in Eddie’s eye and Eddie had refused to speak to him even though it was an accident! A super funny accident Richie definitely should not have laughed at! And even that had only been a week.

‘If you wanted me to last another day why’d you have to get so oily?’ Richie complained. ‘Why’d you have to get so sweaty and oily and dirty?’

‘Because you’re a useless child who doesn’t know how to do basic engine repair.’ Eddie sounded pleased. ‘What the hell, come here.’

Richie liked sex with Eddie a whole lot but he liked kissing him just as much, and the kiss Eddie gave him now with his tailbone pressed up against the hot grille was about as good as it got. Eddie’s whipcord body strained against Richie’s palms. His lip was tangy with salt. His sun-scorched skin smelled of engine grease, coolant, sand and fresh sweat.

‘Eds, babe, I’m not kidding.’ Richie ran his hands over the downward slip of Eddie’s loins. ‘If you don’t let me eat your dick right this second I’m gonna just lie down in the dirt and die of like, malnourishment.’

‘That’s not the sort of thing you say to a person who was for real nearly eaten.’ He still sounded pleased.

‘I hate you. You’re mean. Just put my memorial right here, beloved media personality Rich Tozier, blue-ballsed to death on this spot by his super-hot asshole boyfriend.’

‘No jury would convict.’ Eddie licked a shivery line along the shellike rim of Richie’s lip. Richie moaned. ‘Come on, let’s get a move on before we get hate-crimed.’

‘You’re a hate crime against my dick,’ said Richie churlishly, but did as he was told. He’d had his share of candid shots already. He didn’t need one of him at half-chub in the middle of the desert.

They made out in the car, Eddie half-in half-out of his own shirt, the head of Richie’s cock jammed painfully against his fly. He buried his face in guiding fur of Eddie’s stomach where the smell of him was most potent. There were grey hairs there, caught amongst the black. A near-painful tenderness flooded Richie’s chest. It was a familiar sensation, one he’d felt before when he’d seen Eddie for the first time in his new frameless reading glasses, or the multiple times he’d had to wake him after he’d fallen asleep on the couch doing one of his mindfulness games. Richie scrubbed his cheek against the scruff of Eddie’s navel, overwhelmed. 

‘What do you think you’re doing down there?’ Eddie’s fingers tugged Richie’s hair. He was sensitive about his stomach. In the past year or so he’d accumulated some fat there, just a smidge of a pooch but enough that it bothered him. Richie, built like a stork that had swallowed a dumpster, thought he was being ridiculous. For his own part Richie liked Eddie’s little tummy. He liked it because, unlike Eddie, he knew what had put it there. Happiness had put it there, and Eddie was happy because he had Richie.

‘Kissing our baby.’ Richie turned his lips into the soft swell of flesh. He felt Eddie go rigid beneath him.

‘Oh god, don’t say that.’ 

‘You’re such a DILF,’ said Richie, but he was regretting it already. He turned his face up to Eddie’s. ‘Eds, babe, I love your little belly.’

‘Not that.’

Oh. The other thing. Richie sat up. Eddie’s mouth had set into a downcurving line. He kissed it quickly.

‘You’re enough,’ he said. ‘You’re everything I want. You’re more than I ever thought I’d get all by yourself.’

‘I know. You’ve never made me feel anything except absolutely wanted.’ Eddie moved to kiss him back. It was gentler than before, but needier. Richie dragged Eddie into his chest.

‘I wish I had a straight answer for you, whatever it was,’ Eddie continued. ‘But I don’t  _ know _ .’

Richie knuckled Eddie’s shirt to stop himself shaking. The fabric creaked. ‘Don’t beat yourself up about it. It’s not an easy decision. Take your time.’

‘Everyone else seems to be able to make it.  _ You’ve  _ made it.’ Eddie turned his face into the swoop of Richie’s collarbone, seeking mammal comfort. ‘I feel like I’m stringing you along.’

Richie's heart ached. ‘Dumbass. When I’m the one who is so clearly out of his league.’ 

‘Horseshit.’ Eddie’s breath formed a damp patch on Richie’s shirt. He made a miserable little noise. ‘You’d be such a great dad.’

Richie didn’t say it but he thought so, too. There was very little he liked about himself, but that? He’d be good at that.  ‘So would you,’ he said instead. He kissed Eddie’s scalp, stroking the nape of his neck with a thumb.

‘You don’t know that.’

He was right, Richie didn’t. But he did too, with the unswerving faith of the absolute believer. He’d seen Eddie’s search results, the research into surrogacy and adoption and gay parenthood. Not just Google either but books, journals, support groups. He had no doubt that the commitment to  _ doing it properly  _ would follow through to the real thing, if it ever happened. Richie had been the recipient of Eddie’s steady, focused love for long enough now. He knew what an extraordinary thing it was. Where had he learned to love like that, Richie wondered. Who taught him? How could a child do anything but thrive under it?

But there was no use in saying it. Eddie must realise it for himself, or not at all. He tipped Eddie’s face up and pressed a kiss to the dry corner of his mouth. 

‘I’m not fighting with you about this. It’s a thing you’ve got to want with both hands. If you never do, that’s fine. It’s not a deal-breaker or anything.’ 

‘I sort of do, though,’ said Eddie after a moment. ‘But… well, you know.’

‘Your mom.’ 

‘Yes. I mean, what if it turns out I’m like her?’ His voice gave an anoxic hitch. Alarmed, Richie held him closer. ‘What if her disease is in me? We wouldn’t know until it was too late.’

Richie’s skin prickled with hate. ‘You’d never. You’re not like her.’

‘Neither was she till my dad died. That’s all it takes, a catalyst.’ Eddie reached around to unlace Richie’s fingers; he realised only then how tightly he’d been holding. ‘I don’t think I can be a parent unless I know I’m going to be absolutely perfect.’

Richie’s heart dropped. ‘That’s not possible, Eds. No, don’t--.’ He dashed in for a kiss before Eddie could interrupt. ‘There’s no such thing as a perfect parent. They all fuck up. It’s just a question of like, degree.’

‘You’re not filling me with confidence.’

‘I’m not talking about what happened with you and Bev. I’m talking ordinary people non-excellence, not... fucking evilness.’

There was something desperate in Eddie's face, the huge eyes that hid nothing. ‘Your parents are awesome, though.’

‘They are! But you’re comparing against your own mom and, all due respect Eds, that’s a low fucking bar. You think my parents didn’t fuck me up?’

Eddie didn’t say anything. He turned his face away, working a loose thread on his pants. 

‘It wasn’t just Pennywise, or Derry, that did a number on me. They played their part too. Made me feel there was something wrong with me. They didn’t mean to but they did. Eighties parents. Of course they did.’

‘I love your parents,’ said Eddie sadly.

‘And they love you! Seriously, I think my mom likes you better than she likes me or my sister. I’d hold it against her but it just proves she’s got awesome taste.’ He mouthed Eddie’s jaw, playful again. ‘They got better. That’s the thing about being a parent, I think. It’s not a one-way street. Parents give their kids the tools to grow and learn and shit, but the kids do the same for them, too.’

‘The good ones, maybe.’

‘Exactly. Which you’ll be, if you ever want to.’

Eddie ran a hand along Richie’s rough jaw. ‘I still feel like I’m letting you down.’

‘You’re not. You gave me you. You’re in credit forever.’

‘You’re so nice.’ Eddie slumped back into his seat though not before he’d snatched a departing kiss. ‘You pretend like you’re this callous dipshit half the time but you’re so good and nice really.’

Richie pulled out onto the road. He felt soft and warm with love; but it hurt, too. It hurt him that he couldn’t fix this thing in Eddie. Draw his mother’s poison from him, cut it away like a diseased limb. He rejected totally the argument that Eddie would not be the same person, the person Richie loved, without it. What his mother had done had damaged him. It had caused him pain and continued to hurt him. That was all Richie knew, and no amount of talk of character building or whatever would ever convince Richie that it could ever be worth it. 

‘I don’t think anyone feels like they’re enough,’ he said to the windshield. His mouth felt odd, as though he spoke around a mouthful of ice. He sensed Eddie brace beside him. ‘When I was waiting for you in the airport two girls came up to me. Girlfriends.  _ Fans.  _ I didn’t know what to say. I never do. I don’t know what it is they want from me.’

‘Maybe they don’t want anything,’ Eddie said.

Richie ignored him. ‘Like, do I have to make a big speech? Do they want me to say it gets better or…? They were like, twenty, and they looked like they had all their shit sorted already. What the fuck can someone like me teach them? I was twice their age when I came out. That’s not late-in-life gay, that’s fucking-- _ geriatric.  _ And it wasn’t even my choice. I’ve spent way more of my life ridiculing people like them than I have  _ being  _ a person like them. Got fuck-off rich doing it, too. And they act like I’m inspiring or something. What fucking right have I got to tell them anything?’ 

‘You came out to me,’ said Eddie gently, touching his knee. ‘And everyone else… look, it fucking sucks how that happened and that you got that moment stolen from you. That you didn't get to do it on your own terms.’ Richie noticed that Eddie didn’t point out that he too had been outed in that moment; worse, that his own outing had been treated as regrettable-but-necessary collateral damage against the _real_ story that was Richie . It had occurred to him before but only now did it strike him how sad it was. He put his hand on Eddie’s. ‘But the people coming up to you, that’s not why they’re doing that. It’s because of what you did _after_. All those interviews you did. That piece you wrote. The way you turned your career around--and bore the penalty for it, too. I think people see you trying to be a better person. That’s what they admire.’ 

‘Not everyone. I’ve seen Twitter.’ The bitterness in his voice surprised him. He noted, distantly, the whiteness of his knuckles, like golf balls.

‘Yeah, well, that’s your cross to bear. Like you said you spent most of your life punching down. Not everyone’s going to forgive you. But you’re trying. A lot of people get that.’

‘I don’t know if that’s good enough.’ His stomach churned like he was circling a drain.

‘Maybe not,’ said Eddie. ‘I admire you, though.’

Richie scooped Eddie’s hand off his knee and kissed it. His eyes stung. ‘Spoilers, Eds,’ he murmured. ‘Save it for the speech.’

‘I admire you and I like you so much. You make me happier than I ever thought I was capable of. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.’ He squeezed Richie’s knuckles, with enough force they creaked. ‘I’m going to fucking ruin you in my speech though.’

Richie laughed so hard he nearly pulled into oncoming traffic. ‘Dude, not while I’m driving!’

‘You’re never going to recover,’ said Eddie. He settled back into his seat with a look of smug self-satisfaction.

Richie grinned, the misery dissipating as fast as it arrived. Just like that. No intermittent three-day-bender or anything, just happiness settling over him like a blanket. It bothered him that it was this easy. Were his feelings so shallow? Was this something he had earned? He doubted it, but put it to bed. He’d allow himself not to examine it this once, this unearned happiness. 

Fuck, he loved him so much.

‘Hey, Eds?’ Richie glanced over. The extraordinary, beloved, brown-eyed face turned to his, a flower tracking the sun. ‘What would you think I meant if I said I wanted to cream-pie someone?’

***

Richie stepped out of his underwear onto the cool tiled floor and, unable to resist, wriggled his toes. Urge satisfied, he stooped to retrieve his phone from his shorts pocket. The lockscreen (Eddie, downward dog, conspicuously outraged) read 11:27 PM.

Thirty-three minutes till the day Richie got married. Became a husband. Got one.

His heart skipped. He imagined if someone had told him this would be the case just three years ago, how he’d have responded. It would have seemed incredible--no, impossible. He’d have been rude. Frightened, too. Even now it felt like the most outrageous thing in the world, and Richie had once snorted a lamb’s leg of coke off a twinky lighting tech’s asscrack. Unlike that time however he didn’t feel overwhelmed by self-hatred. Just… astonished. And excited. Really fucking excited.

His almost-husband (the term filled his skull with exclamation points, !!!) had been in his own room several hours already, was probably asleep after a pint glass of water and an aspirin for a nightcap. Honouring the pact. Richie didn’t mind that so much. What bothered him was that they wouldn’t be sleeping in the same bed tonight. A while back it had occurred to Richie that--assuming they both lived to a good age (Eddie, definitely; Richie, perhaps not)--there would be a point where they had spent more times sleeping next to one another than not. Once it had formed the idea obsessed him. It had become the essence of their impending marriage, to have shared a bed with one another for most of the nights of their lives. 

He was only a little tipsy himself having drunk only the champagne Beverly insisted they share. Three-years-ago Richie would have been amazed at that, too. It had been a quiet evening with his (soon to be their) family and closest friends. There’d been a good dinner, and Richie had dandled Bill and Audra’s little boy on his knee while his grand-niece ran crazed circles round him like a shark with blood up one nostril. Eddie, reticent in company, was loose with drink and pleasure, and Richie had accepted each of his adoring, gin-coloured kisses like it was the first. 

Still flushed with contentment Richie tried hard not to fall into the old habit of second-guessing it, yet looking back on the evening brought on the familiar melancholy. Stepping into the bath, thinking of the people he loved, it was perhaps inevitable his mind turned to Stan. Whenever they got together the Losers left a place for him. It occurred without discussion, hardwired as instinct and tonight had been no different. Now he was alone Richie could let himself remember the person who had filled the empty space. 

It had been a couple of years now since Eddie had shown him the place he’d found on one of his runs. ‘It’s the Barrens,’ he’d said, which made no sense until Richie had seen it himself. There was no explaining it but there it was: the Barrens had followed them here. With an inborn sense they would not be discovered, they’d stripped off their clothes and swam in the cold, clear water like children. A willow’s cascading branches made a shelter and, freshly emerged from the stream, they’d had sex in its shade, loving one another in a way both ancient and new. Lying on the bank after, Richie had listened to the sound of birds and thought to himself,  _ warbler. _ He didn’t know how he knew what a warbler sounded like, or even what one looked like. Then he'd understood. Stan’s presence was thick here, in this place at once the Barrens and not. The air vibrated with him. 

They never went back. They’d known, in the way the Losers knew things, that it was something that never be repeated. But Richie had continued paying attention to birds. In their new home, while Eddie battled the weeds and fretted about deadly fungi you could catch from rose thorns, Richie put up feeders. He wasn’t much good at identifying the visitors that came but it didn’t matter. It was a good way of remembering a person. 

Richie scrubbed the tears from his cheeks. The bubbles in his bath had turned to scum; glancing at his phone, he realised almost an hour had passed. ‘I’m getting married today, Stan,’ he said to the empty room. ‘You’re never gonna guess who to.’ Stan probably could have guessed. If any of the Losers had known, it would’ve been him. He’d known Richie better than perhaps anyone had at that age. Perceived things others let slip by. Maybe that was the reason he wasn’t here anymore.

A loud rap at the door interrupted his woolgathering. He sloshed water onto the tiles, and swore. Who the fuck was visiting this time of the night? he wondered, then had a misgiving that it was his sister. She’d taken a liking to Mike, and the last Richie had seen of her she was doing a good impression of being  _ super  _ interested in North American cryptids. She’d a primitive, guy-like sense of honour from her time in the military, and Richie had a sudden premonition that she was coming round to ask for permission. Not that she’d give a fuck what he said. Melissa did what Melissa liked, and if Melissa liked Mike… well. Richie didn’t want to know anything about it. 

There was another knock. ‘Just a sec!’ he shouted. He grabbed a bathrobe off the hook on the door and kicked his underwear under the bed, rolling his eyes when there came a third knock.

‘Jesus, Mel--.’ But it wasn’t Melissa. 

‘You’re taking a shower this time of night?’ asked Eddie. 

‘Bath,’ said Richie, shoving his glasses on. Eddie looked freshly washed himself, fluffy-haired and pink. He was wearing a soft bathrobe and his hairy, barefooted brown legs stuck out the bottom. It was at these Richie stared.

‘Hey, Eds? Lost your shoes?’

‘Oh it’s like three yards.’ Eddie waved his hand dismissively. This was unprecedented. To Eddie all hotels were cesspits, Las Vegas ones moreso than most. Richie would have been less surprised had he turned up in a pair of nitrile gloves and a respirator. But here he was, in hotel-issue bathrobe and bare feet, like a sexy hobbit.

‘You letting me in any time soon?’

Richie stepped back to let him pass. He caught the familiar clean smell of him, eucalyptus bodywash and toothpaste. He balanced on the balls of his feet, trying to make as little contact with the kelp-coloured carpet as possible, toes spread like those of an aquatic bird. When he flopped onto the bed his knees dropped apart, revealing a strip of soft inner thigh. Eddie was naked under that bathrobe. The hairs on Richie’s arms stood to attention.

‘Is that your suit?’ Eddie indicated the jacket hung up in the open closet. 

‘You shouldn’t be looking!’ Richie, with herculean effort, detached his gaze from the pale glancing flesh. ‘It’s bad luck.’

Eddie ignored him. ‘Are those flamingos?’

It took Richie a second to catch up. ‘Yeah.’ Beverly had designed both their suits and she’d lined Richie’s jacket with a sheeny, dull gold material with a repeating pattern of rose-coloured flamingos. ‘For you,’ she’d said, grinning; they both knew who the suit itself was for. Eddie, who had been close to distraught the one time Richie had attempted something like a conventional haircut, nevertheless loved him in a good suit. And Richie liked anything that made Eddie look at him like  _ that.  _

He was looking at the jacket like that now, like Richie was already in it. ‘Hey, Eds, over here.’ He thrilled when Eddie’s face turned to him. His gaze carried the force of a punch, eyes pupil-blown and oddly shiny. He looked as though he were hungry, and Richie a morsel.

‘Have you been crying?’ Eddie asked, spoiling the moment. Richie considered lying but it seemed a poor beginning to a marriage and anyway, Eddie had seen him cry like a thousand times. That first year had been rough. 

‘I was thinking about Stan.’

Eddie’s face did something complicated. A short while ago Richie had mentioned in passing, the punchline to a stupid joke or whatever, the time he’d tried to off himself. Seeing Eddie’s stricken face he’d regretted it immediately. It was just the once, he’d told him, back when things were bad. He’d been drinking as usual, taken a couple of pills and then thought, _what if I carried on?_ So he did. He knew, of course he did, but it was like his brain refused to let him examine what it was he was doing. Just drove him onward, like a horse onto wire. Eventually he’d passed out, and woken the next day mouth foul and face down in a gut-stained bedsheet, the demon exorcised. He’d been lucky. A year later a sort-of friend hadn’t been so fortunate. Later still there was Stan. 

The thing about it, he told a Eddie who was watching him with an expression so fixed it was nearly blank, was that nothing in particular had happened. It wasn’t even one of his worst days. He just did it. 

Eddie had cried. Eddie rarely cried, so to see him doing it over something that had happened so long ago… Richie struggled to understand. ‘I never did it again,’ he kept saying, but Eddie was inconsolable. It astonished Richie that Eddie loved him like this, loved even the fucked-up, past version of himself that even Richie couldn’t care about. When he’d sufficiently calmed down, Eddie had dragged Richie to the bathroom and together they’d gone through all of Eddie’s medicines, throwing away anything he didn’t absolutely need.

‘Come here,’ said Eddie from the bed. 

Eddie’s mouth tasted of Colgate now, not gin; but it was gin that had made him warm and pliant. Richie adored the pinkness of his cheeks under his freckles and he kissed the spots till Eddie bit him. ‘Little cat,’ Richie grinned. A hand snaked into his robe and he gasped. ‘ _ Eds. _ ’

‘I had a dream before,’ Eddie murmured into his mouth. His teeth were killing-sharp. ‘I dreamed I was dead, and I washed my own corpse.’

‘Way to kill my incipient boner,’ grumbled Richie, appalled. 

‘It was whole--my body, I mean. No scars. Like I’d washed them clean off.’ He smoothed the trail of coarse hair leading to Richie’s groin. ‘It wasn’t scary or anything. Actually, it was sort of nice.’

It didn’t sound nice. Then again it was an act of love, wasn’t it? Washing someone’s body? Richie tried to articulate this, but Eddie’s hand was creeping south and Richie’s higher functions going with it. 

‘Uh, Eds? Wasn’t there a reason we got separate hotel rooms? Like, a pact or something?’

‘We get married today. The pact’s over.’

The pact had definitely been  _ after  _ we’re married, not  _ the day we get married _ but, very occasionally, Richie knew when to keep his mouth shut. Instead he said, ‘I get it. It’s different when  _ you  _ want it.’

‘We both know how this relationship goes,’ said Eddie, and Richie found he had no tart response to that.  


By some sleight of hand Eddie had gotten Richie’s bathrobe open without his noticing; now he peeled it clear and crouched back on his haunches to get a good look at him. Richie felt the blush creeping up his chest. He disliked his body, its absurd proportions and hairiness, the accumulation of fat around his midsection. It mystified him that Eddie liked it so much. Yet there was no arguing the fact, he did. There could be no faking that blackening of the eyes, or the creaturish flare of his nostrils. He ran his palms over Richie’s shoulders again and again, taking in the breadth of him, biting his lip as though to stop himself eating Richie right there. His tongue came out to wet his mouth. His throat bobbed and clicked. 

‘Get on your back,’ he rasped. 

Richie did. He wondered if the thudding of his heart was visible in this position. Eddie looked terrific, limned in the dull brick-coloured light of the room. He could see the faint cast of his ribs, the ropey sinews of his torso, the little shade of stomach that invited Richie's hands. Like this it seemed all the more ridiculous that Eddie, so irrefutably the hottest man in the world, should look at Richie like he looked at him now. 

‘Gotta test that lumbar out,’ said Eddie, throaty with drink. He swung a leg over. ‘Try before you buy or whatever.’

‘You’ve had a few tries already,’ said Richie, but that was as far as his protest went. These past few years he’d discovered he wasn’t so much of a  _ bottom  _ as a  _ whatever the hell Eddie wants me to be,  _ and he knew Eddie would fuck him later. He was fair like that. In the meantime, Richie would let him ride him like a pony. A nasty, dirty little pony.

The bathrobe hung off Eddie’s elbows like some fabulous ermine coat. He fished a bottle of lube from the pocket and upturned it over Richie’s cock, topping off the action with a cursory twist. Shuffling back onto his knees, he balanced his loins over Richie’s hips, arms extended and fingertips spanned across his heart. 

‘You want me to grease you up, babe?’ Richie asked. 

‘That won’t be necessary.’

Seized by a sudden suspicion, Richie slipped his hand through the meagre space between their bodies. He curled in his fingers. Eddie was slick, and clean as a whistle. ‘You little tramp!' he barked, as delighted as he was surprised.  


‘Like I said, not necessary.’ Eddie smirked.

Richie thought of Eddie alone in his room, buried to the third knuckle and working. His dick, pointing like a gun-dog, twitched. ‘What if I’d said no? Honoured the pact?’

Eddie shot him a look of derision. Richie felt a burst of real indignance. ‘I still could, you know. Give you a taste of your own medicine.’ But it was hopeless: Eddie had begun to rock on his fingers. It was like he said, they both knew how this relationship went. 

‘This is about me,’ said Eddie. Richie grunted, pressing his thumb to the humid stretch of skin between his balls and ass, adding another finger. When Eddie spoke again his voice came set on an edge of breath. ‘You’re just going to take it.’

He stood up on his knees. Richie slipped his fingers free and snatched at his dick, not a moment too soon. In one fluid motion Eddie took him, right down to the root. 

‘Just hold right there,’ Eddie said. 

Richie could do nothing but watch as Eddie began to move. He rocked against him in a sort of pulsing squat, a couple of inches of tight, careful motion, Richie’s cockhead doing all the work. He cupped Eddie’s ass while he angled for the spot. A second later he found it, a shudder racking up his body like he’d been attached to a current. ‘Fuck,’ he gasped. ‘Oh, Jesus.’ Richie couldn’t even manage that much.

It was a privilege to watch Eddie like this. He looked unbelievable, eyes glazed and half-closed, lips parted, skin shining like that of a hard-run horse. He dropped onto the heels of his hands, gripped Richie’s shins and worked his hips harder. Richie, half-crazed with need, could not help but reach out and drag Eddie down over his dick. One of Eddie’s hands swiped out. 

‘Stay as you were.’

‘But babe, I need --.’

‘No, you don’t. I told you, this isn’t about you. Deal with it.’

Richie showed his teeth. ‘Don’t try and edge me, you little bitch.’ Yet he squeezed the root of his dick as hard as he could stand, and drove his heels into the mattress. He ground his jaws so hard his temples ached.  


The arrhythmic snap of Eddie’s hips was bordering on frantic now. A month of not having was taking its due and things were moving fast. Richie could not let himself follow, and gripped his dick so hard it hurt. ‘Babe, I love you,’ he choked out. He knew Eddie heard him only by the biting down of his body. 

‘I’m so fucking close,’ Eddie gasped after a moment. Richie wished he could see his face, tipped up to the ceiling; but his chest was wet and red and his ribs stood out like girders. Skimming down Eddie’s body, Richie’s eyes were drawn to the nacreous bead of moisture shivering in the cleft of his cockhead. A hard jag and it fell, catching in Richie's belly hair. The muscles in his stomach jumped.  


‘Can I help you?’ Richie heard the begging note in his own voice. Eddie shook his head. Drops of sweat in his hair swung loose. His own hand came round and he pulled on himself with a control belied only by the frantic snap of his hips. A noise began in the bottom of his chest, rose up into his throat. It occurred to Richie someone people they knew were sleeping on this floor. He was too far gone to care.

The erratic motion of Eddie’s hips came to an abrupt halt. He shot messily between his fingers, pulse after pulse, with a sound like he was being hurt. Before he’d finished Richie had shoved him off and flipped him, pinning him to the mattress with one hand and grabbing himself with the other. ‘You can do whatever you want now,’ Eddie gasped. His eyes were closed and he shivered with aftershocks. His sticky pink stomach swerved up invitingly.  


‘Anything?’ Richie asked, thinking he could make a Pollock out of that stomach.  


‘Anything.’ The dewy apple of Eddie's throat bobbed; Richie wanted to lean in and nip a chunk from it. An eyelid cracked. ‘Except come on my face. I’m not spending my wedding day explaining how I got special, non-infectious pink eye to your parents. Once was enough.’

‘You’re never gonna let that go are you.’ Richie’s mind whirred maniacally. ‘Seriously, anything?’

Eddie smeared his wet shoulders against the bed. ‘Yeah, whatever. Do what you like. I’m done.’ He shut his eyes again.

_Fucking pillow princess_ , Richie nearly said but didn’t. This was one gift-horse he wasn’t about to look in the ass. An idea was forming. He leaned over and kissed the spoiled mouth. ‘Can I eat you out?’

A line appeared between Eddie’s brows and he opened his eyes again. ‘Hm,’ he said.

‘You can say no.’

‘I’m not saying no.’ He propped up on his elbows. He looked uncertain. ‘Is it a thing people like? Like, really like? Because it seems like one of those things people say they like to do just because it makes them look... I dunno. Sexually sophisticated or whatever.’

‘I promise you there is nothing sophisticated about licking someone’s dookie-hole,’ said Richie.

‘Jesus Christ.’ Eddie covered his face with his hands. ‘Seriously though, that’s why it’s weird.’

‘I wouldn’t suggest it if I didn’t think you’d like it,’ said Richie. He was earnest now. ‘It’s like… Indian food. Remember how you thought you didn’t like Indian food?’

‘I really don’t want to think about curry right now,’ Eddie groaned from behind his hands. ‘Indian food is fucking amazing though.’

‘You’re telling me. I’m the one that watched you cry your way through that vindaloo, remember?’ Richie cleared his throat. ‘ _ “How’s it so good? It hurts so bad but it’s so go-ood?” _ ’

Eddie’s hands flew apart. ‘Do not fucking Voice me.’

‘I’ll eat you out so good you’ll Voice yourself,’ Richie grinned, dropping another kiss onto Eddie’s outraged mouth. ‘ _ “It’s so go-oood. How can something so gross--.” _ ’

‘Dude, you need to fucking stop before I change my mind about this.’

Richie did a little jig on his knees. ‘Seriously?’

‘Seriously. But--.’ The determined expression on Eddie’s face faltered. He looked suddenly troubled. ‘You know I’m never going to be able to do this for you, right?’

‘No skin off my back.’ Richie shrugged. 

‘I’m being serious. Does that bother you?’

Richie kissed him like he might kiss the raw, vulnerable look off his face. ‘When has it ever bothered me what you will and won’t do?’

‘I know that, but--.’

‘Babe, if you’d let me I’d live face-down in your ass. Just move right the fuck in. I really do not give a shit.’

Richie felt the tension rush out of Eddie’s body like a held breath. ‘Okay,’ he said at last.

‘All I care about is making you feel good.’ 

‘I know that,’ said Eddie, allowing himself to be turned onto his stomach. ‘You do. All the time. Every day.’

That tenderness like hurt again. Richie dabbed a kiss onto the back of Eddie’s neck. When he came away there was a skin of salt on his lips, like the powder scales of a moth’s wings. Drawing east, he kissed the crescent scar which had repelled him once. Now he sort of loved it, its existence a proof of Eddie’s healing, its slow knitting together the midst unit of their being together. He kissed it again so that Eddie knew he loved it too. His fingers ran a gooseflesh trail down the toast rack of Eddie’s ribs, and tipped up his hips. 

The bathtime aroma of eucalyptus still clung to Eddie’s skin, but only just. Sex had made him briney in taste and scent. In the creases of his body it ripened, became something deeper, complex, almost loamy. More  _ mammal _ . It was difficult for Richie to not bury himself in it. But he could feel Eddie shaking. He kissed the jut of his coccyx. 

‘If you want me to stop just say so,’ he said, stroking a hipbone.

‘I don’t want you to stop.’

That was enough for Richie. His jaw ached; saliva flooded his mouth. Doglike, he pressed his nose to the tacky crease of Eddie’s ass, and dipped his tongue. Firecrackers went off in his head. Somewhere miles away he heard Eddie’s sharp inhale. Embedding his thumbs in the divots of Eddie’s hips he thought to himself,  _ just you fucking wait.  _

Eddie was still lube-slicked from before and it took several deep, doggy licks before Richie could get at the taste of him. Before he’d even got as far as that Eddie was squirming. He might have been trying to get away were it not for the fact of his cock, fat with blood already and thumping rhythmically against Richie’s wrist. Conscious of pushing things, Richie withdrew and teased with the tip of his tongue. Eddie gave an outraged squeal, a sound Richie had never heard and Eddie never made before. He backed up against him like a bitch in heat. Richie didn’t need to be asked twice, and buried his tongue to the root. 

It was difficult to tell who was fucking whom, the way Eddie rode his face. The cock snapping against his wrist was wet now, wetter than Richie had ever known.  _ I fucking  _ told  _ you,  _ he wanted to say but couldn’t, so he dared teeth instead and was rewarded by a sound only dolphins and dickstruck Toziers could hear.

‘No, no, no,’ Eddie slurred over and over. He’d clawed the bed linen clean off the mattress. Richie, knowing better than to stop, drove on, practically entombing his aching tongue. Eddie jammed his face into the pillow like he was trying to tunnel to safety, and fucking  _ keened.  _

‘Oh, god. Richie, fuck. Oh god I love you. Sweetheart. I fucking love you and I need you to fuck me. I need you to fuck me with your big fucking dick.’

Richie didn’t know where the lube had gone and didn’t care to find it, either. He prised Eddie apart with his thumbs and pushed in. He didn't even need to guide himself, he was so hard. Evaporating saliva made it drag but on the first thrust home he hit a seam of bodywarm lubricant and dragged it forth, smoothing the way forward.

Eddie had used only the tip of Richie’s cock before; now Richie gave him the lot. He put his hand to the wet side of Eddie’s head and pressed him into the pillow. With the other he hooked his pelvis in place. Eddie, always noisy, was making weird little  _ hen hen  _ noises like the air was being beaten out of his body. Still he reached back and dragged on Richie’s thigh, willing him deeper. ‘Fucking give it me, make me take it,’ he half-snarled, muzzled by the pillow. Richie did. With a near brutish force, using every inch and pound of advantage he had, he fucked Eddie as a large animal breeds a smaller. What romance there had been in the thing was for the time forgotten; yet even in this blackout creature state Richie loved the body beneath him.

After a while he felt the telltale bunching behind his balls, the anticipatory tautening of his flesh. ‘Eddie, baby. I’m gonna-- where do you want me to--?’ he choked. It was difficult to speak, like his throat was made different.  


‘In me,’ Eddie grunted without hesitation. ‘Fucking--fill me up. I need you to--.’

Richie came so hard his vision fragmented. He noted vaguely the noise he made, something rough and awful that seemed dragged out the primordial part of himself. Pinned beneath him, Eddie shuddered, taking it, taking it. 

‘Fuck.’ Richie lifted his weight. There was a whoosh of air as Eddie refilled his lungs. He turned him onto his back and surged forward to kiss him. Eddie’s mouth opened. He sucked Richie’s tongue into his mouth, like his body was bereaved without Richie inside it.

Eddie was raw and blown open but Richie fucked him with his fingers anyway, almost cruel for it. Semen flooded over his knuckles, Richie's own, which made him feel at once generous and greedy so he used his mouth again, pinning Eddie by his hips and sucking till he thrashed and shouted and yanked his hair. ‘Oh, god, I need you to eat it,’ he sobbed, and shot into Richie’s throat. It was a thin, bitter second load, and Richie swallowed it down like it held the secret to eternal life. 

Richie remained there a long time, with his damp forehead pressed into Eddie's stomach and his licked-clean dick softening against his tongue and fingers curling in his hair, and wasn’t sure what he felt at all.

‘Come up here, sweetheart.’

Somehow Eddie knew Richie needed comfort before he did. He put his arms around him and stroked his back and hair. There was a strange aching emptiness inside of Richie. He buried his face in Eddie's chest as though he might hide from it.   


After a while Eddie turned Richie’s face to his, dropping a kiss onto his mouth. ‘Alright. What’s this all about?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Richie. He did not want to look at the dark, dragging thing inside of him. He did not want Eddie to see it. ‘I think maybe I don’t know how to be happy.’

Eddie kissed his mouth again. Then he kissed its corner, the bridge of his nose. He kissed all over his face saying all the while  _ my lovely, my love. _ Slowly the empty place inside of Richie filled. He felt again the sensation he had had in the car, of a soft blanket being lowered over him.  


‘You look like you know how to me,’ said Eddie when Richie caught his mouth with his own.

‘I’m sorry, it’s stupid. Forget about it.’

‘Don’t say that.’ He stroked Richie’s face. ‘Tell me.’

‘It should be easy, but it isn’t. I feel like… it’s going to go away. That I haven’t earned it and that someone’s going to notice.’  


‘Hm,’ said Eddie. He had not stopped kissing Richie and Richie let him, feeling at once the thrill and terror of it. 

‘I don’t think I could stand it,’ said Richie.  


‘Who exactly do you think is going to take it away?’  


Richie shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Okay. In that case, what is it that makes you happy? You were unhappy once, and you’re happy now so--what changed?’

‘You,’ said Richie without hesitation. He looked at Eddie, bronze-coloured and soft-edged, the fine-boned wrists and huge, gentle eyes. ‘Everything else--the house, my work--that’s just icing. You’re the only thing I need.’

Eddie licked his lips. There was a divot in one side of his face, like he was suppressing a smile. ‘So the only thing that could take it from you is… me.’

‘And me,’ said Richie quickly. ‘I could absolutely screw this up.’

‘Are you planning on that?’ 

‘No. But, you know…’ Richie swept an arm out, indicating the entirety of his body. ‘Well. You know. I’m A Lot.’

‘You sure are,’ said Eddie, tracking the gesture with an appreciative expression. When he looked up there was a divot in the other cheek too. ‘You know, I’m not exactly personality of the year either, right? I’m… abrasive. Unlikeable.’

‘I like you,’ Richie said. He felt furious toward this unknown critic. He pressed a hard kiss to Eddie’s mouth. ‘Fuck whoever said that.’

‘There’s been a few. A consensus, even. You must have noticed?’ 

‘Once or twice,’ said Richie, still bristling with offence. ‘Whatever. Fuck those boring assholes.’  


Eddie was outright grinning now, dimple city in the sunburn-flush of his cheeks. ‘And did it ever occur to you maybe I like your assholishness too?’

‘Maybe,’ conceded Richie. ‘I mean, you'd be blind not to notice. My being an asshole.’  


‘And did it also occur to you that maybe for me you being you was a reason to stay, not leave?’

Richie didn’t speak. His throat felt slick and wet all of a sudden. He swallowed.  


‘So let’s say you’re not gonna drive me off with your terrible personality any time soon. Which leaves me. Rich, do you think I’m going to leave you?’

‘No,’ said Richie. He could taste something ferrous, as though his heart’s blood had risen and filled his mouth. ‘You always come back.’

‘I do.’ Eddie kissed him. When he withdrew it surprised Richie that his lips didn’t come back red. ‘I always will.’

‘Thank you.’ Richie felt stupid for saying it. He couldn’t help it.  


‘I find it difficult too,’ said Eddie, shuffling under the blankets. He held the sheet up for Richie. ‘Happiness, I mean. I think it’s like a habit you learn. Or a skill. You have to practice.’

‘Maybe.’ Richie followed him under the cool linen. His skin erupted; then Eddie was there, folding around him, blood-hot and rough with salt. 

‘Neither of us had much of it before we found each other. We haven’t practiced enough to be good at it yet.’ He flung his arm across Richie’s chest. ‘Practice with me?’

‘Jesus, Eds.’ Richie made a gagging face. It was negated by the rush of blood into his cheeks, the idiot, loved-up grin he couldn’t help.

‘I know, right? I’m grossing myself out.’ Eddie grinned back. ‘Still, it’s worth a go. You can start by eating me out more often.’

Richie’s hand slid down to Eddie’s ass. He stroked the plump muscle. ‘You liked that, huh?’

‘Liked it? Dude, I’m fucking pissed you’ve been holding out on me.’

‘Holding out on you!’ Richie stopped stroking the tacky skin and sat up, outraged. ‘I’ve been raising it at every opportunity for the past three years!’

‘Yeah, and I’ve lost three years of good rimming experience because you’re a bad fucking salesman.’

‘Fuck you! I will not be held accountable for this! I used every trick I had short of sticking my tongue in your ass while you were playing Duolingo. If I could’ve hidden it in a piece of cheese like a pill, I would’ve.’

Eddie's dark brows dropped together like a crossbeam. ‘You put your pills in cheese?’

‘I have feral cats!’

There was a triumphant quality in Eddie's smile. He snuggled into Richie’s body, scrubbing his fingertips through his chest hair. He dropped a kiss against his shoulder and shut his eyes. ‘Are you not going back to your room?’ Richie asked.

‘I’d rather stay here if that’s okay with you.’

Richie tucked Eddie’s head into his armpit. He made a happy little grunt. His breaths came slow and deep. Richie supposed he slept, but after a while he said, ‘I owe you one.’

‘Owe me what?’

‘An orgasm.’ Eddie cracked open an eye. ‘I’m one up. I’ll sort that out later.’

‘Well I won’t stop you.’

He yawned hugely, showing his molars. ‘I’m gonna split you in half. It’s gonna be like Niagara down there.’ Then, as though his meaning wasn’t clear, ‘The Canadian side.’

‘Wow, Eds.’ In spite of himself Richie felt his dick twitch. ‘Though it’s sort of like Niagara now.’

Eddie grunted. ‘You’re telling me. I should probably go to the bathroom.’ But he buried himself further into Richie’s armpit, taking in a deep breath of him. Richie was touched. He squeezed the hand bunched in his chest hair. 

‘I don’t know how I’m gonna explain this to the maid,’ he said. ‘The room’s supposed to be single occupancy.’

‘You’re rich, you can pay her off. Send her kids to private school.’ Eddie breathed hotly against him. After a moment he said, ‘Speaking of which.’

‘We don’t need to talk about that again.’ Richie lifted Eddie’s knuckles to his lips. ‘Seriously, I’m okay with it.’

‘No, shut up.’ Eddie lifted himself up onto his elbow. He pressed his hand to Richie’s mouth. ‘I’m not going to get upset again. Just listen. I was watching you with the kids earlier, and you looked....’

Richie kissed the tips of Eddie’s fingers. He wanted desperately to tell Eddie it was okay, really, but the force of his gaze was like a weight. His mouth worked, parsing the words he wanted to say like an old woman cracking sunflower seeds.

‘All this time I’ve been thinking, what fucking right have I to keep him from what he wants,’ he said at last.

‘ _ You  _ are what I want,’ said Richie. He felt saddened that Eddie wasn’t getting this. Frustrated, too. ‘ _ Everything else is icing. _ ’

‘Shut up! I know!’ Eddie’s palm clamped over Richie’s mouth. He resisted the urge to lick it like he would any other time. ‘But you want this other thing too and I’ve been thinking, what right have I to keep him from this? And then I realised. It’s not  _ me _ keeping you from it. It’s her. My mom.’

‘If she’d just lay off the diaphragm already,’ slurred Richie through Eddie’s fingers. He jammed his tongue into the hollow of Eddie’s palm.

‘Seriously?’ Eddie snatched back his hand and scrubbed it furiously against Richie's arm. ‘I’m trying to tell you I want kids with you and you’re making yo momma jokes?’

All the moisture evaporated from Richie’s mouth. He croaked, then tried again. ‘You want kids with me?’   


‘If you ever let me get a word in edgewise.’ He looked at Richie’s stricken face and softened. ‘Yes. I want kids with you. Do you still want them with me?’

‘Dude, you know I… but really? This isn’t...?’ He made a vague gesture to himself. ‘What I mean is, is this something  _ you  _ want too?’

Eddie grabbed the gesturing hand and pulled it around himself. ‘Yes, really. I've thought about it, a lot, and I need... I need to stop letting my mom make decisions for me. From beyond the grave, even.’

Richie looked into the dark serious eyes, looking for any sign of hesitancy. Eddie stared unflinchingly back. It was a different Eddie to the one in the car earlier. This Eddie with absolute conviction in himself. He remembered the dream that Eddie had told him about, of washing his own corpse clean of its hurts.

‘Fuck, dude.’ His tongue had cleaved to the roof of his mouth which made it difficult to speak. There was a pain behind his eyes. ‘Okay. Let’s do this.’

‘Perhaps just the one.’ There was a touch of the old caution now. ‘Kid, I mean. We’re pretty fucking old. And I want to adopt. No surrogacy. It’s too expensive and I want an older one, I think.’

‘Really?’ Richie didn’t care either way, but there was something in Eddie’s certainty that compelled him to ask.  


‘Yeah, really.’ Eddie’s eyebrows dipped, lining up his thoughts. ‘I’ve spent all this time thinking about what sucked about being a kid, what might happen because of what happened to me but... it was pretty fucking good, too? Like, for all the misery and horror, there were times I was just-- _ so  _ fucking happy. And I totally forgot how to be happy like that until I met you guys again, till I met  _ you  _ again, and I could remember what it was like to be a kid. And I guess--.’ He licked his lips; his tongue looked shockingly pink against the shadows of his face. ‘I guess I’d like to give that chance to another kid. The opportunity to, like, create a reserve of good memories to draw on. Does that make sense?’

‘I think so,’ said Richie, who understood too the possibility of enormous happiness in the face of immense trauma. The amnesia of his middle life had removed not only the memory of the clown and Derry, but the joy of his youth, also. It had removed his bedrock; or rather, made it inaccessible, like a flooded primeval plain that reveals itself only eons later. Unable to reach it, his life had become a thing he might attempt to curtail with something like indifference. He wondered where he'd have ended up had it never existed at all. ‘Fuck, Eds. It makes total sense.’

Richie heard the sound of Eddie’s throat unsticking. ‘So are we agreed?’ he said.

‘Fuck, yeah.’ Overwhelmed, he grabbed Eddie's hand and clutched it to his chest. ‘Let's do this. Let's be dads.’  


‘I'm shitting myself.’ Eddie said. He spanned his fingers and curled their tips, staring at it as though he held something precious. ‘Don't get me wrong, I'm super fucking excited too. But I'm shitting myself. Are you not shitting yourself?’  


‘Nah, dude.’ Richie beamed. ‘I'm too excited. I can’t fucking wait! You’re gonna be such a hot dad. I can’t wait to pop a boner watching you eviscerate the anti-vaxxers at the PTA.’

‘That is so fucking inappropriate.’ 

‘Dude, your nostrils just flared and your pupils blew the fuck up. You look like Battle Cat when she thinks I’ve got tunafish. You’re looking forward to it as much as I am.’

‘Maybe a little,’ Eddie conceded. He wore a faraway look of anticipated slaughter. 

‘My little feral bastard,’ singsonged Richie, tucking Eddie back into his armpit. ‘Murderous darling.’

‘Sweetheart.’ Eddie switched off the lamp and turned to kissed Richie’s pec. ‘My lovely almost-husband.’

Perhaps it was the case that they weren’t good at happiness, that it was something they must learn. But Richie knew what it was he felt when he held Eddie like this. He knew what it was when he contemplated the far future day when they would have spent more nights of their lives sleeping next to each other than not. 

‘I can hear your heart,’ said Eddie into the dark, and Richie knew he felt it, too. 

**Author's Note:**

> If I have to suffer being an infectious disease professional in 2020 then so does Eddie Kaspbrak. Also FUCK The Hot Zone. Nobody melts from Ebola!
> 
> Song is 'There's A World Outside' by the Psychedelic Furs. I listened to it on repeat while writing this, so Richie gets to have it attached to a traumatic memory. Sorry, dude. He's right though. Misery-cycling songs was much harder on tape.
> 
> Comments appreciated, coveted, etc. etc. I'm the same handle on Tumblr; follow me for stupid bird-related content! (I love you Stan)


End file.
